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Active: 965 users

Running Starcraft in Ultra/Extreme

Forum Index > Tech Support
Post a Reply
inSighTsc2
Profile Joined May 2010
United States110 Posts
October 02 2013 14:17 GMT
#1
Hey everyone I have always wondered why I can't play SC2 in Ultra/Extreme without some lag and choppiness.


My computer specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor (4 CPU) 3.4~ GHz
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
RAM: 8 gb
OS: Windows 7 64 bit

and on canyourunit.com it says I'm exceeding recommended.

Any help would be awesome!

Thanks!
Karma's a bitch, right? - Danny Worsnop
Salient
Profile Joined August 2011
United States876 Posts
October 02 2013 15:03 GMT
#2
Two things:

(1) Your rig is kind of low end.
(2) Even very powerful rigs don't do well with ultra in large battles (especially team games). That is because Blizzard only bothered to code the game to use 2 cores. So, for example, an i5 can only use half of its cores.

I play the game on a mix of high and ultra. Here are my system specs:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($230.00)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($33.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($125.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($63.00)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($135.00)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($69.00)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($406.00)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($100.00)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.00)
Monitor: BenQ GW2450 24.0" Monitor ($159.99)
Total: $1496.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-02 11:02 EDT-0400)

MasterDrone
Profile Joined January 2013
France50 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-02 15:11:36
October 02 2013 15:10 GMT
#3
Well you can't run it in Ultra setting. You probably run it on mixed Mid High with 200/200 battle of 1v1. I have the pretty same rig as yours, and I run on Low to have nice FPS & nice response.
Nimix
Profile Joined October 2011
France1809 Posts
October 02 2013 15:31 GMT
#4
Ultra physics and effects can't be ran even by very good computer with a playable FPS, because of the CPU issue Salient mentionned.
Running the game on ultra without physics and effects maxed is doable though, and you should even get more or less the same FPS than on full low if you go ultra with the CPU options put on low if you have a decent GPU.
Rollin
Profile Joined March 2011
Australia1552 Posts
October 02 2013 15:53 GMT
#5
A 5750/5770 would struggle with 1080p+ ultra as well, especially in hots.
Throw off those chains of reason, and your prison disappears. | Check your posting frequency timeline: http://www.teamliquid.net/mytlnet/post_activity_img.php
inSighTsc2
Profile Joined May 2010
United States110 Posts
October 02 2013 16:57 GMT
#6
Well thanks a lot Salient! Rollin do you have any recommendations on graphics cards?
Karma's a bitch, right? - Danny Worsnop
Rollin
Profile Joined March 2011
Australia1552 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-02 17:06:10
October 02 2013 17:05 GMT
#7
Uh well early game you're going to be limited by your graphics card on ultra, and lategame you're going to be limited by your cpu (regardless of settings), so my recommendation is to not play on ultra. I turn off most of the post processing anyway because it looks like shit.
Throw off those chains of reason, and your prison disappears. | Check your posting frequency timeline: http://www.teamliquid.net/mytlnet/post_activity_img.php
inSighTsc2
Profile Joined May 2010
United States110 Posts
October 02 2013 17:16 GMT
#8
gotcha! thanks! ill look into getting some parts!
Karma's a bitch, right? - Danny Worsnop
rolando
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States82 Posts
October 02 2013 23:40 GMT
#9
i am pretty sure that mobo and CPU aren't compatible
Caladan
Profile Joined May 2008
Germany1238 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-02 23:46:26
October 02 2013 23:45 GMT
#10
The performance per Mhz of the Phenom II (and most other modern AMD cpus) is rather low. So for Ultra you would need mostly a better CPU. I would not recommend a AMD cpu here because of the issue mentioned. You need strong cores, rather than many.
A nice Intel i5 for example would do (at least in 1v1). For that, you would need a new motherboard as well though.
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20322 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-03 01:00:07
October 03 2013 00:02 GMT
#11
Yea sc2 will only max 1 core and load another to ~40% on a strong CPU, no performance difference just playing having 2 cores enabled vs 4 from what i could see (didn't bench it, but didn't seem big)

performance tiers between like stock phenom II, stock sandy/ivy/haswell and high oc on intel CPU are pretty massive. Once you've got oc'd i5, performance stops going up though (as hyperthreading doesn't help you for solely running sc2 and i7 offers nothing else - then the 6 core CPU's regress in performance on each individual core in order to run 6)

If you're looking to boost minimum FPS or FPS in fights or just later in the game with lots of units, CPU is 100% the way to go, if your FPS at certain settings are unsatisfactory with like 6 workers and nothing else happening then you maybe want a GPU upgrade. I think if you were to upgrade GPU though, you might just see the same FPS on same settings when FPS starts to drop because you'd likely be CPU limited. My friend on an e8400 (core 2 duo @3ghz, forgot the arch name) and a 5770 did some quick benchmarks for me and showed pretty much identical FPS on min vs max settings in a high supply 2v2 game, the big thing to do when you're talking about raising graphical settings is to raise other stuff, but NOT physics/reflections/effects, and if your GPU is half decent with a CPU that's not amazing you might find FPS hardly changes where it matters

Honestly, the best gift blizzard could give would be rewrite of sc2 engine, changed pathing, scalability onto more than one core with dx11 api. That would improve so much for so many people
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
MadeInPolanD
Profile Joined March 2014
Poland2 Posts
Last Edited: 2018-06-10 10:57:20
June 10 2018 10:56 GMT
#12
On October 03 2013 00:03 Salient wrote:



(2) Even very powerful rigs don't do well with ultra in large battles (especially team games). That is because Blizzard only bothered to code the game to use 2 cores. So, for example, an i5 can only use half of its cores.



Anything changed in that department?
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20322 Posts
June 11 2018 08:19 GMT
#13
No, we just have some CPU's with faster core & RAM performance
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
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